"The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love."
- Jane Austen
I wish I could say that this isn't true of me, that I have never entertained the exact same sentiments in the very core of my soul. I cannot.
In my twenty-one years I have run the gamut which, I am sure, has been been bumbled along on by other women as well. I've asked the inner questions: "Am I simply too idealistic? I'm a very passionate person. I think a person ought to be truly, madly in love on their wedding day. Is this emotional tripe? Would God ask me to marry someone I don't love? I know it's possible, and I want His will, but... I don't know what that is. It never quite works - they want me, but none of them are right for me; he really attracts me in every way, but I'm not right for him. Perhaps no one else really feels this deeply [hah, the folly]. I'm not getting any younger. Maybe I should have acquiesced to someone I passed by. Am I holding out for the impossible?"
Like many,I have gone from self-assured to not-at-all sure; from desiring nothing more than to love and be loved by the one man for whom God made me, to contentment with the idea of lifelong singleness. From fearing if perhaps my standards are too high and my desires too selfish, to refusing to resign myself and settle for something less than real.
There would be no point in bringing up such struggles, sharing them with other young women, unless I had reached some conclusion on the matter or some lesson learned. And that, I have.
Certainly not from society, which pollutes and poisons the minds of men and women alike in regards to relationships. Not from the church - which, in my opinion, often tends be either silent or loudly wrong on the topic of marriage. Not even from my parents. I actively seek their wisdom and advice on a regular basis, following and applying it to my life, but no human being can bring lasting peace to the heart of another.
It was when I hit my knees and gave up - gave up my will, my future, my worries, my idols - that things finally started happening. Did God bring a man into my life? No. The opposite, in fact... for when we go for something good, we miss out on God's best. I am genuinely no longer capable of being happy except in the center of God's will for me. That may involve anything from being a janitor to a missionary; a mom to a single old woman. I can finally and honestly say that it does not matter to me. Everything is secondary to His desires, His plan. No matter what they may be. I say that joyfully, not sacrificially.
We all, no matter how long it takes us, reach a point where we desire so strongly to love and be loved by someone. To be sure, there is that very real physical and emotional loneliness. To deny the fact would be to dishonestly deceive ourselves.
But how do we seek to salve that loneliness? Most people do not realize that there is also a space, deep in the heart of every human being, which cannot be filled even by a spouse. There is a love we crave with every ounce of our aching souls, regardless of whether or not we're painfully aware of it. A space which can only be filled by God himself. And so often, even we Christians mistake it for a longing for the human love we chase, not realizing that even once we attain it we will be unfulfilled. We were made for something so much more: something perfect. And once we have it, I don't see how there could be any going back. Everything else really does, of a sudden, pale in stark contrast.
Does that sound like hollow spiritual rhetoric? It did to me, once upon a time. It always does, until it becomes personal and tangible.
Tears fill my eyes at the thought of how many "followers of Christ" (I used to be one of them) have never felt Him... never gotten close to Him as to a closest friend or a lover... indeed, never known Him. Some Christians go to church a few times a year. The good ones, every Sunday. The really great ones volunteer during the week and get involved in ministry, or go on missions trips. Even at home they study the Bible as they would a textbook, and utter one-way prayers into the air. Is that it? Is that worth it? Isn't a relationship two-way?
How many of us have a personal God? How many of us can say, with every possible bit of sincerity, that He is our closest friend, the One we most want to please and most hate to disappoint - that there is nothing and no one we love more? It's one thing to say it. It's another thing to feel it, and yet another to fully know it.
When I was younger, I read a few stories from Foxe's Book of Martyrs. I still regularly read the Voice of the Martyrs magazine. I used to wonder what it was that kept such Christians faithful through gruesome torture and death. I admired what I assumed was their steely willpower.
Willpower doesn't do that - everyone has a breaking point! Love does that. Not theoretical love, but actual love. How many of us would die for something we don't know to be true? How many of us, outside of the military sense, would die for a total stranger? How about someone we'd met once? That's what I thought. Now how about family, or a close friend? I'd give my very life for my little brother. My mom, or my dad. An Egyptian girl I know, who is like a sister to me. Why? They're not just names. I LOVE them. I know them.
It's possible to be acquainted with the Lord, to be saved by Him, yet not know Him (how sad!) "Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me?," Jesus asked Philip.
We have got to know Jesus. If we don't, why in the world do we bother with the religious rigamarole? What, then, does the concept of heaven even hold for us? What is the point of being "saved" - to spend eternity with someone we do not know, much less love?? "Your love is better than life," the Psalmist, David, says. Wow! Think about that literally (the Bible does mean every word of what it says). God holds in His heart the deepest possible, beyond imaginable love for us, but He does not force it on us. We have to want it. We have to seek Him. Psalm 145:18 says, "The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." That's not a "maybe"... it's a promise!
By the way, trusting someone comes easily once you really know them. I wouldn't ask that you trust a stranger. God doesn't, either. I trust Him with my life, including my potential love story, because I trust Him - trust Him to do what really is best for me, not what I think is best for myself. How could I not!? Is it not tragic that we claim to live for a God whom we refuse to trust with our circumstances??
It's absolutely mind-blowing to me when I think of how God has taken me from striving and worrying to a place of complete and utter rest about my future (spouse-related) - especially with no one on the horizon, as it were. Why? It's not up to me anymore! With reckless and joyful abandon I have surrendered every last part of me to Him. I only wish that I had more of me to give! It isn't a lack of caring, it's simply that I am no longer the driver in this vehicle that is "my" life. I am not my own. He is not a part of my life; I am part of His. Since my life is not my own, why should I worry as to what may come of it? There is no one I could possibly trust more. And there really are no words for me to describe the complete happiness which comes with that.
I'm still a woman, and a very romantic one at that. I still deeply desire a man for whom I can be the sunshine and a helpmeet along the journey of life, an asset for him in his goals and his calling. But now it is just that: a desire, not a preoccupation. Not something I stew over. It used to be a nearly unbearable ache... an ache which has truly been filled, in huge part, by my Jesus. The essential part, the part which I need with all that I am, is one hundred percent fulfilled by the One who understands perfectly. There is no sweeter love.
